Seasons Change

I think I’ve finally hit my breaking point with capitalism, and I’m almost there with life in general. It’s supremely frustrating to know that I have to go to work every day to make money in order to come home and be able to eat a meal requiring minimal preparation and watch/listen to some entertainment before I fall asleep and do it all again. I used to find fulfillment in my work, I knew I was doing good, necessary work so that people could get healthcare they desperately need. Even though I’m still doing that, I can’t get the same satisfaction out of a job well done as I used to. I used to feel like my job was making provider’s lives easier, so they could see more patients and provide good care. Now I feel like I’m working for a money dispensing machine that people are constantly abusing, then complaining about.

That’s not to say that I blame people for complaining about the US healthcare system. It is awful, and I want to make it better however I can. But ultimately I don’t have the power to do that by myself, so until we reform healthcare again I’m stuck working for a very stable, very lucrative monster.

It feels too early to be thinking about a career change, even though I know several people who are younger than me who have made multiple career changes. I’ve worked my way up from housekeeping/light labor to customer service to office work and now to specialized technical white collar work, all the while expecting pay to match my level of skill (at least, to my knowledge). I don’t generally like to be in uncomfortable/insecure situations, and changing my career and income would be extremely uncomfortable. I’ve been trained from an early age to be self-sufficient and self-reliant so I can get myself out of any situation and only ask for help when everything I’ve done for myself hasn’t worked, so the idea of changing careers and being dependent on anyone else when I’ve worked so hard to become this independent is terrifying.

Still, this is a natural step on my anti-capitalist journey and I want to allow myself time and space to really think about it in a revolutionary way. It’s so easy to get caught up in what is and what has worked in the past that it’s hard to really make a new vision of the future happen.

I did a journaling exercise the other day that involved me brainstorming five alternate lives I could see myself living, and because I’m where I’m at they all revolved around changes in occupation. I thought about how I envisioned my future when I was a child, and it always involved some form of performance or expression for or with other people, so that we could share emotions and make memories. I wanted to be a travelling storyteller or a Broadway/opera singer or some other sort of artist, and with every day that goes by I feel more and more existential angst that I’m not able to create or practice art.

Capitalism is a progressive disease. Work is no longer a way I can contribute positively to the world, it’s a necessary evil because we need money to meet our material needs of survival.